Category Archives: Events

Join us for Indies First on Small Business Saturday! Indies First is the new bookstore initiative that asks local authors to take over their indie bookstores and hand-sell to customers. Bringing top-notch recommendations from our own homegrown talent straight to you! Not only that, but we will have special gifts that will be offered throughout the day (with a corresponding purchase).

Please join us for this special event. Adam Berlin will be in-store reading excerpts from his newest publication, “The Number of Missing”, discussing the writing process, and signing copies of his book. Books are now available in shop for purchase.

Beautifully raw and honest, Adam Berlin’s novel follows two characters through the long darkness in New York after 9/11. This is about the running, the drinking, the standing still, and the unquantifiable missing. Berlin’s book is shattering, real, first-person history, made intimate by a narrator forced to stare at himself against the hole of Ground Zero. -James Frey, author of “A Million Little Pieces.”

Adam Berlin is the author of Both Members of the Club (Texas Review Press/winner of the 2012 Clay Reynolds Novella Prize), Belmondo Style (St. Martin’s Press/winner of the Publishing Triangle’s Ferro-Grumley Award) and Headlock (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill). His stories and poetry have appeared in numerous journals. He teaches writing at CUNY’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City and co-edits J Journal: New Writing on Justice. For more visit www.adamberlin.com

In Dirt Work: An Education in the Woods, Christine Byl tells the story of her years working as a “traildog” in the National Parks of Montana and Alaska. On Thursday, November 7th Byl will share her experiences at Tiny Terra Ferma for a book reading and signing, co-sponsored by The Spiral Bookcase.

Throughout her memoir, Byl explores the language, tools, skills, and fraternity of traildog work, writing candidly about the harsh living conditions, injuries, and insecurities that come with the job. A complete novice when she started at Glacier National Park at the age of twenty-two, Byl quickly learned how to clear brush, dig ditches, build bridges, clean up after forest fires and blast snow. Divided into six sections, each chapter in Dirt Work begins with a profile of a toolasso ciated in the trailwork in that particular region. In a field traditionally dominated by men, Byl learns firsthand about the division between mental and physical labor. She questions the common assumptions about “men’s work” and “women’s work,” while dealing with criticism from her male coworkers and handling her own insecurities on the job. However in time these insecurities make her stronger, giving her an appreciation for working with her own hands and making time for nature.

After working on the trails for over sixteen years, Byl now lives and works in Alaska with her husband Gabe, where they run a trail-design and construction business. What started out as a post-graduation summer gig turned into a decades-long job, where Byl, who was once a novice, eventually became a leader and mentor to other trail dogs. She writes about her education in the woods and how “a strong body can usher in mental clarity. Noticing how the world works keeps you open to it.”